Freelance Police office — walls and wainscot complete

With the doors finished, the time has finally come to glue the foamcore walls into Sam & Max’s office. The walls are a snug fit and I had to be careful to make sure the edges of the two side pieces were exactly flush with the bricked sides. I didn’t want the walls sliding around during gluing and accidentally drying in the wrong position, so I used a lot of clamps to hold the pieces in place.

Next I applied wood filler along the seams to cover up the cracks where the wall pieces meet.

This was tricky around the windows, since I had to be careful not to get wood filler on the stained trim.

I kept the tape in place while the wood filler dried, then painted, and then removed the tape. Unfortunately some wood filler had seeped under the tape — very close to the trim. Yikes.

I taped over it again and used the tiniest brush I have to paint over those spots.

Next I cut down the wainscot pieces, which I’d purposefully left slightly too long, so they fit exactly.

And then I added the trim pieces to form the panels.

This corner by the window is a little messed up — ideally the vertical trim on the right side should be scooted over so you see an equal amount of trim on both sides, but the window’s in the way. C’est la vie.

Before doing the wainscot on the other side of the room I had to finish the rat hole. If you look closely you can see the support piece behind the foamcore. It’s sloppy.

I had intended to add a piece of veneer, stained to match the wainscot, to the inside edge of the hole. This would hide the support piece and make the hole look more finished.

But this was the best I could do with it. The curve in the wainscot isn’t quite the same as the curve in the foamcore and I just couldn’t get the veneer to stick in neatly.

Plan B: I painted a thin piece of wood, the same depth as the space between the foamcore wall and the roombox wall.

Here it is glued in. The painted foam core is still a little janky, but when you back up it all blends together.

Next I finished the paneling on the other side. Since I moved it, the rat hole is nicely centered.

Almost done! I just need to add crown molding and trim out the base. There will also be trim pieces over the exposed white edges of the foam core, I’ll do those after I add the trim to the base.